The title above is #1 because there will be others about A Child's View From Gaza In Gaza we visited three children's centers they all displayed pictures drawn by their children. At Qattan we took photos of work from their Art Therapy Class. (They are featured in my blog entry about Qattan) The night before we left Gaza our group selected projects we hoped to accomplish when we returned home. A children's art exhibit was among those selected and I volunteered to work on it.
Since November, I've devoted much of my time to make this exhibit happen. Six centers are participating; the three we visited and three I contacted at the suggestion of MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance) Each Center is from a different area in Gaza. I wonder if the pictures will reflect those differences.
Thank goodness for email....it has been our only means of communication. Gaza has no residential mail that I'm aware of. The people I'm working with have access to computers where they work; I don't know if they have them at home. Within Gaza cell phones are relied on for communication. They offer freedom to people who have little freedom.
The children were presented with three areas expression for their pictures: the bombardment, invasion and their aftermath; their every day lives, home, school, play, family; the future..dreams, needs, wants. I don't like telling them what to draw about; but felt it was necessarw for the exhibit to have some continuity.
School supplies, materials and paper are in short supply and I have concerns the art exhibit used much of what they had. When I asked for sizes I received paper sizes I am totally unfamiliar with.
Getting the pictures out of Gaza has been an extremely difficult task. Originally, it was planned they would be picked up and brought back to the US by participants in The Gaza Freedom March. Since they weren't allowed into Gaza, the pictures remained there.
About Me
- Susan
- Doylestown, Pennsylvania, PA, United States
- During 2004 I experienced, what I believe was divine intervention. While joining hundreds of thousands of protesters in a large demonstration commemoration the invasion of Iraq, I was approached by a woman asking, "Have you ever thought of going to Palestine?" I replied it had never entered my head. She explained a group of women, "Women of a Certain Age" were going in June, suggesting I might consider going with them. In June we were in the West Bank where Palestinian lives are thwarted by the Occupation. 2009 found me traveling to Gaza four months after Operation Cast Lead. Though i thought I was ready to see Gaza for myself, I wasn't. It was a traumatic experience. Gaza was destroyed. beyond words. I brought together a collection of children's drawings sharing experiences of their life in Gaza. "A Child's View from Gaza" tells their stories Gaza's story.